El Scorcho
by Christmas Child
Summary: Ian Snyder is a lonely foster child, taken in temporarily by the Morgandorffers. Chaos and romance will ensue
1. New Kid

Daria in: "El Scorcho"  
  
Author's notes and stuff: Hey hey, welcome to my first "Daria" fanfic! Uhmmm... it's a crossover with Frank Peretti's "Veritas Project." Sort of. I just borrowed a character from Hangman's Curse. Not even a main character. He just seemed good for the part. It's okay if you've never read it or heard of it or whatever. Yes, I know this is just screaming at you "RUN AWAY!!!" But I urge you to give it a try anyway. And me likes reviews.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own Daria, MTV or Noggin or someone does. I don't own Ian Snyder, or the "Veritas Project." That belongs to Mr. Frank E. Peretti. All I own is the plot to the story, my really slow laptop, and some Teddy Grahams. But I don't own Teddy Grahams either, just the one box... I'll shut up now.  
  
"El Scorcho" Chapter 1: New Kid  
  
Ian Snyder climbed awkwardly off of the bus and looked around. Okay, where exactly have the Springfields sent me? he wondered. The boy was of short stature, and had a mean look about him. He wore all black and had even dyed his hair that way, though light brown roots were starting to show.  
"I guess I can wait here," he said aloud, looking around for a sign of his social worker. He found a bench and sat down, placed his black book bag beside him, and put on his headphones.  
  
He would sit there for four hours.  
  
***  
  
"Oh, I just know I had something else important to do today," sighed Helen Morgandorffer as she sat down to some sort of "Pasta a la Jake" with her family. Helen had, of course, already achieved many great feats that day, including saving three major corporations from bankruptcy, and having lunch with yet another rich young brat who wanted to sue someone or other... over the course of the day, Helen had forgotten the details. Still, after all that, she still felt something nagging at the back of her mind.  
As usual, the Morgandorffer family sat through dinner without accidentally managing to communicate anything important.  
Quinn wrangled fifty dollars out of her father's wallet by simply being cute.  
Jake built a meatball and spaghetti castle. He was disappointed about the lack of little pasta people.  
Helen attempted to start conversation with Daria, who was busy running a sarcastic commentary, and managed to deflect every direct question asked of her.  
As the table was cleared, Helen sighed again, wondering whatever had happened to the closeness of her family. Then her cell phone rang and all was forgotten.  
"Hello? ... Oh, hi, Eric! ... What? Oh, no, I forgot! ... Well, yes Eric, but I thought he was supposed to already have a family... but we don't do these kind of suits, do we? ... Of course I'll pick him up, where is he? ... he will have a new home within a few days, right? ... Ok... ok, buh bye."  
  
And so the Morgandorffer household acquired a new resident. A new temporary resident.  
  
***  
  
Helen drove to the bus station, grumbling all the way.  
"Why am I always expected to pick up after everyone's messes? I do not need some teenage delinquent in my house right now! Why couldn't they just send this boy to the detention home, he'll probably end up there anyway..."  
She pulled up to the curb, where she saw a young man dressed entirely in black asleep on a bench.  
"I do not have time for this!" she exclaimed. Rather than putting the car in park and waking the boy up, she simply leaned on the horn.  
The boy awoke, and blinked through the glare of the headlights. Helen rolled down the window and called out to him.  
"You there! Are you by any chance Ian Snyder?" she asked.  
"Yeah," the boy replied, standing up. "You my social worker?"  
Helen noticed how pale he was. And how grubbily dressed. "Erm... no... I work at the firm that's handling your case, though. Helen Morgandorffer," she said this in a rush, extending her hand for a brief handshake. "They sent me after you because... oh, hell, I don't know. Just get in so we can get home."  
Ian climbed into the car. "So... I'm staying with you?"  
"Temporarily, until we sort out where you're supposed to be. I don't know why we took this case on..." Helen muttered the last part mostly to herself. "Do you have all of your things?" she asked, suddenly much more chipper.  
"Uh, yeah." Ian put his headphones back on. They rode in silence for a moment, until Helen realized that, like it or not, this boy was now a part of the family, whether temporary or not.  
"What are you listening to, Ian?" she asked conversationally.  
"Huh?" was his reply.  
"I said, 'what are you listening to?'"  
"Oh," he said, removing the headphones. "Saves the Day." Then he replaced the headphones, and they lapsed back into silence.  
"What's 'Saves the Day?'" Helen asked a few moments later.  
"A band," Ian replied, becoming agitated by this woman's questioning.  
"Oh. Well, I don't know much about music, but how about popping it in the stereo? I'd like to hear what you listen to, get to know you a little better."  
Ian shrugged. "Okay." He removed the CD from his player and put in into the car's changer.  
  
This song will become the anthem of  
Your underground.  
You're two floors down  
Getting high in a back room.  
If I flooded out your house  
Do you think you'd make it out?  
Or would you burn up  
Before-  
  
"Well!" Helen exclaimed, abruptly switching off the music. "Is this how you've been living?"  
"What?"  
"This song is about drugs!" Helen cried. Ian merely raised an eyebrow.  
"Lady, if you'd listen to the whole-"  
"I cannot believe Eric talked me into this..." And Helen became lost in her own mutterings about juvenile delinquency and the unfairness of it all.  
Ian sighed and retrieved his CD.  
  
***  
  
  
Sooo... that's it for chapter one, more of an intro than anything. Reviews would be much appreciated, and I'll take all the help I can get! 


	2. The Redhead

El Scorcho, Chapter 2  
  
"The Redhead"  
  
***  
  
When Helen and Ian reached the Morgandorffer home, it was pretty late. The house was dark, and they entered quietly.  
"Ian, why don't you put your things in here?" Helen asked, indicating the front closet.  
"Well, this book bag is really all I have," Ian replied, indicating the tattered bag thrown across his shoulder.  
"Oh," Helen replied, at a slight loss. "Well then." A pause. "I guess you can sleep on the sofa for now. We'll see about better arrangements in the morning, okay?"  
Ian nodded agreeably and placed his bag and black jacket at the end of the sofa.  
"I'll get you some blankets, you can change in here," Helen said, leading him to the bathroom.  
"You can meet the family in the morning, okay?" Ian nodded, slightly embarrassed.  
"Alright." Ian turned to go into the bathroom, and then looked back. "Mrs. ... uh, Morgandorffer?"  
"Yes, Ian?"  
"Thanks. Thanks a lot."  
  
Helen nodded and went to the linen closet, with a faint smile on her face.  
  
***  
  
Much later that night, Ian lay curled up on the sofa, listening to his CD player again. He was about to fall asleep when a sudden noise jolted him. He sat up and promptly fell to the floor.  
"Ow!"  
"Who's there?" a voice asked.  
Ian wasn't sure how to reply to this. "Um, Ian?" he muttered, a bit confused.  
The lights flipped on, and Ian found himself staring at Quinn Morgandorffer.  
"Who are you?" Quinn asked, a bit put off by this bizarre stranger.  
"Didn't your mom tell you?" Ian said this as he stood up to face the confused redhead.  
"Tell me what? You have about five seconds before I'm calling the police, mister, so start explaining!"  
"Apparently not. Look, your mom picked me up because my social worker wasn't there. They work for the same firm." Ian stated this all very matter-of-factly.  
"Really. Oookay, whatever." Quinn was tired and was desperate for some aspirin, so in her ever popular, cute way, she dismissed the topic and ambled into to kitchen. Ian shook his head to clear it of the superficial vision that had just wandered by and yet again attempted to fall asleep. He wondered what he'd done to deserve landing in a place like this. Oh, yeah. He figured that the punishment for setting a nonexistent demon on popular people was probably pretty steep.  
  
***  
  
"Alas, a spy in our midst. Identify yourself." Ian awoke to see a dark-haired girl with glasses peering at him over the back of the sofa. He was so startled; he managed to fall to the floor once again.  
"Ow. What now?" He sat up and Daria walked around the sofa to help him up.  
"I'm assuming you're supposed to be here because no one would voluntarily stay on our sofa, or here in Lawndale, for that matter," she said, extending her hand.  
"Yeah, I'm supposed to be here until they find my social worker. She's supposed to work with Mrs. Morgandorffer," Ian replied, dusting himself off.  
"Ah. So yet again, my mother's boss has foisted the hard work off on her. Figures." Daria turned and headed for the kitchen.  
"Wait. Who are you people anyway?"  
"Oh!" Daria was surprised. "Yeah, we don't do a lot of talking around here. Sorry. Daria Morgandorffer." She extended her hand yet again, and Ian shook it.  
"Ian Snyder. So, can we get some food around here?"  
"No, but we have some pretty good processed stuff, if you want."  
"Pop tarts?"  
"You got it," Daria said, once again heading for the kitchen.  
"Alright," Ian said, following her.  
They entered the kitchen to see the rest of the family already sitting down to breakfast.  
"Aack!" Quinn cried, dropping the bowl of cereal she was just placing on the table. "Who is that?"  
"Quinn!" Helen exclaimed. "This is Ian, and you should act better than that!"  
"Mu-o-m! It's not my fault you just let some scary juvenile delinquent walk around our house!" Quinn obviously didn't remember the previous night's encounter.  
"Quinn, I'm warning you... Jake! Wake up!" Helen was becoming a bit flustered by Quinn's reaction to their guest.  
"Wha- ahh, the bats of death! They've come for me!" Jake screamed.  
"Don't worry, Dad, it's just the bats of bad fashion," Quinn muttered in an undertone. Fortunately for her, Helen didn't hear.  
"Jake! This is Ian! The foster child case, remember?"  
"No," Jake replied meekly.  
"Oh for heaven's sake," Helen muttered. "Look, Ian is going to be staying here until we find out what happened to his social worker," she continued, now speaking to the family.  
"Oh!" Jake brightened. "Pull up a chair, my boy!" Jake was now enthused. "You can be the son I never had..." And Ian was pulled in to a reminiscence of Jake's childhood, involving occasional outbursts against his father, but was mostly benign.  
Daria sat down in her usual place, across from Quinn.  
"Daria," Quinn hissed, "Why is he dressed like that?"  
Daria studiously ignored Quinn, and focused on her pop tart. Quinn sighed and began cleaning up her cereal.  
While all of this was going on, Helen had picked up the phone.  
"Eric! I'm so glad I caught you before you left! Look, what am I supposed to do about this boy? ... Uh huh... Eric! I can't just- ... alright... look, do you have any kind of information on him? Anything? ... Okay... okay... mmm hmm, alright, buh bye." Helen hung up the phone.  
"Well, Ian, we haven't had any luck finding your social worker, but it looks like she's run off to Bermuda. Third one this month," Helen muttered. "Anyway, Ian, Eric, my boss, says to just let you stay with us for now. We can't enroll you in school yet, but you can go to school with Quinn or Daria until we get that taken care of."  
"Um, ok."  
"How old are you, anyway?" Helen asked.  
"16," Ian replied. "I'm a junior this year."  
"Great, you can go with Quinn then!"  
"Mom! I can't! I won't! You can't make me!" Quinn cried out, distressed by the thought of what the Fashion Club would have to say about this.  
"Quinn, you will, because we are a family, and Ian is now a part of it, and you are to treat him as such!" Helen said this through clenched teeth.  
"Not such a good way to put it," Daria muttered.  
Ian was feeling distinctly uncomfortable. "I'm gonna go to the bathroom," he said, making a quick getaway.  
As soon as he left, Quinn resorted to her tried and true tactic of bargaining.  
"If I do this, what will you do for me?"  
"I'll let you take my gold card to the mall," Helen replied.  
"Platinum."  
"Gold plus I'll take you to Mall of the Millennium."  
"Gold, Mall of the Millennium, and you let me ride with Sandi and the Fashion Club."  
"Done." Helen handed over the gold card. "Quinn, if you max that card out, or don't live up to the bargain...  
"I know Mom, I know! You'll ground me for all eternity, lock me in my room and throw away the key, and make me wear stretch pants and baggy t-shirts for all eternity, right?"  
Helen just sighed.  
  
***  
  
Ian was walking with Daria to school, managing to make actual conversation for the first time since he'd arrived in Lawndale.  
"So, where are you from?" Daria asked him.  
"Baker, Washington," Ian replied.  
"Better than Lawndale?"  
"Sure, if you're popular," Ian replied, remembering the social disaster of his old school.  
"Ah. So, what did you do to get sent here, anyway?"  
"Oh. You don't wanna know about all that," Ian said, immediately closing up. Daria decided to drop it. She had a healthy respect for privacy, and besides, she wasn't really interested, she just felt kind of bad for him, since Quinn had immediately ditched him. Daria figured that Quinn and the fashion drones and the gold card were already halfway to Mall of the Millennium.  
"Definite bargaining chips," Daria murmured, smiling.  
"What?"  
"Nothing."  
So they continued on their merry way to Lawndale High.  
  
***  
  
  
And thusly ends chapter 2. Yes, I know it's short. Just think of the days when Daria still aired on MTV, and the plot was in short snippets between long commercial breaks.  
  
Thanks to the folks who reviewed chapter 1! I hope this is coming out good. All comments, critiques, suggestions, whatever, are happily accepted! 


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